Intertextuality

Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein written in 1818 is a novel about scientist Victor Frankenstein who brings a creature to life, and the journey of the two from the monsters creation to their demise. Many interpretations and readings have been attributed to this novel, all of which apply a different understanding to the meaning of the text, the themes and the characters. The notion of the monster and the pursuit of knowledge in a slowly globalising world is prevalent throughout the novel and will…

Ian McEwan’s Atonement explores the highly enthralling themes of war and the subsequent horrors, corruption, and the power of language and story-telling, a theme prevalent internationally or otherwise in every piece of literature. McEwan utilises and vast plethora of techniques and literary conventions in order to allow a deeper insight into these predominant themes. McEwan uses techniques including imagery and pathos to powerfully illustrate his Realist view of war. Within part II and III,…

Writer's Statement For my text production piece I chose to compose an expository piece after I was inspired by the story of Moby Dick and its description of whales as monstrous beings. My overall intention in writing my piece was to uncover the truth behind the Norwegian whaling industry, an industry readily overlooked in favour of the more brutal Japanese traders. The form of this expository piece abides by the conventions of an informative speech. The alliterative title No-way out of Norway…

situations. These films show us the truth behind what we really want, and how we would live our lives if the world was coming to an end. Many apocalyptic films that incorporate a dystopian society have similar intertextuality. For instance, many films use a certain language to create their intertextuality through specific scenes such as the ‘slow walk’. The ‘slow walk’ is used to show the audience that the characters in the film are about to embark in a battle and possibly die. Zombie films…

forward progress. While Porter shows how plagiarism plays a huge part in the art of literature in this day and age, due to this there has to be a change to what we can expect in literature. Porter starts his article off by introducing the term intertextuality, this is the idea that all text has traces of other text in them. He supports this concept by using the Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson as an example. Porter stated, “if Jefferson submitted the Declaration for a college…

Chapter One: “Every Trip Is a Quest (Except When It’s Not)” Chapter one of How to Read Literature like a Professor describes the day to day encounters of a young boy. Foster explains that though the story is just a simple plot line detailing a common part of teenage life, it should be viewed as a quest, rather than just a normal teenage story. Through this example, Foster highlights key components of a quest, and it is demonstrated that a quest-style plot can be found in a large variety of…

This fact, and having read The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy - A Trilogy in Four Parts before starting with this novel, equipped me with a preconception of Douglas Adams's work. I knew roughly what to expect from an Adams work of fiction. The title of the novel, too, causes more connections to be made, obviously to the genre of the murder mystery, but also to a specific post-modernist theory concerning the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. On the back there is a "blurb" by the…

Every author has their own unique writing style. Kurt Vonnegut’s just so happens to be very effective. The unique pairing of black humor, social satire, and science fiction make the stories of Kurt Vonnegut both intriguing and effective. His way of satirizing contemporary society using themes such as war, sex, and death makes his stories bluntly honest. To verify the assumption made, three novels were read. The novels include: Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat’s Cradle, and Breakfast of Champions.…

Kathryn Kalinak also argued that the use of music that has already been released in the past, for example Beyonce and Andre 3000's updated version of Amy Winehouse's classic 'Back to Black' may, 'trail with them personal histories and trigger memories, experiences and emotions, which may be at odds with [a] film's dramatic needs' (2010: 87), e.g. the viewer thinks of the late Amy Winehouse's death rather than concentrates on the film. This being said could be a possibility, although this opinion…

Shakespeare and Inarritu explore the idea that human life and suffering is ultimately meaningless in the play King Lear, and the film Birdman, through the idea that the inevitability of death makes life meaningless. Using a solemn tone, both Shakespeare and Inarritu have indicated that their plot’s possess tragedies, and suffering. Where Inarritu has used a modern American setting to show how human life is ultimately meaningless, Shakespeare has used England in the 700th BC, while they are in…